“We're very far ahead of schedule, really, a lot ahead of schedule,”

How to spot the Lyrid meteor shower that is peaking this week The show will be visible across the globe, but views will be best in the Northern Hemisphere. And there's no risk of the crescent moon photobombing the Lyrid shower. It'll set before the fun starts.

This year's Lyrid meteor shower is getting a boost thanks to a dim crescent moon. Skywatchers could see 10 to 20 shooting stars per hour soar across the spring sky, according to NASA, when the fiery display peaks Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. https://to.pbs.org/4tWbyG2

The Decline of Britain's FAILED Hitler YouTube video by JimmyTheGiant

One of the more insane facts about palantir is Louis Mosley the grandson of wannabe British hitler Oswald Mosley, is the head of palantir's UK branch. youtu.be/IOekgrWfJxE?...

The 'adversaries won't wait' statement doesn't reject deliberation outright, it just makes serious deliberation always feel premature. You can debate this or that war, but the underlying question, whether to build the systems at all, is treated as settled, & that's deliberation as performance.

5. The question is not whether A.I. weapons will be built; it is who will build them and for what purpose. Our adversaries will not pause to indulge in theatrical debates about the merits of developing technologies with critical military and national security applications. They will proceed.

The headline argument is straightforward enough, democratic survival depends on hard power, hard power is now software, so Silicon Valley owes the West an AI weapons industry. Adversaries won't wait, so we can't either, which taken at face value sounds like a defence of democracy.

A diagram showing the VDA framework and the Arc of Democracy. At the top, three icons label the essential elements of democracy: Verification (tick), Deliberation (speech bubble), and Accountability (magnifying glass). Arrows descend from each through three horizontal bands representing the arc: Substantial (truth tested, voices included, power constrained), Performative (forms remain but substance is weak, rituals without consequence), and Simulated (appearance maintained but functions inverted: propaganda as verification, polarisation as deliberation, scapegoating as accountability). A vertical arrow on the left marks the arc's direction: improvements, decline, collapse. A column on the right maps counterpublics onto the same three states: functional counterpublics act in a substantial way, hollow counterpublics in a performative way, disordered counterpublics in a simulated way. The bands shift from grey through pink to red as democracy moves toward simulation.

I've set out the framework I'm using here in an earlier thread, on VDA, the Arc of Democracy, and the moral-epistemic stacks idea, what follows applies that framework to the Palantir document directly. skywriter.blue/@eliothiggin...

Opening text of a thread by Palantir from X Because we get asked a lot. The Technological Republic, in brief. 1. Silicon Valley owes a moral debt to the country that made its rise possible. The engineering elite of Silicon Valley has an affirmative obligation to participate in the defense of the nation. 2. We must rebel against the tyranny of the apps. Is the iPhone our greatest creative if not crowning achievement as a civilization? The object has changed our lives, but it may also now be limiting and constraining our sense of the possible. 3. Free email is not enough. The decadence of a culture or civilization, and indeed its ruling class, will be forgiven only if that culture is capable of delivering economic growth and security for the public. 4. The limits of soft power, of soaring rhetoric alone, have been exposed. The ability of free and democratic societies to prevail requires something more than moral appeal. It requires hard power, and hard power in this century will be built on software.

Palantir put out a 22-point summary of their CEO's book The Technological Republic. It's pitched as a defence of the West, but if you read it through the VDA framework, verification, deliberation, accountability, what it's actually doing looks rather different.
twitter-thread.com/t/2045574398...

More serious thoughts on this in this thread
bsky.app/profile/elio...

Extremely normal and fine for a company to put this in a public statement

Fully documented source code for Elite on the 6502 (BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Commodore 64, Apple II, NES) Fully documented source code for Elite on the 6502 (BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Commodore 64, Apple II, NES), with more than 100 deep dive articles explaining how every aspect of this iconic game works...

Someone has documented the entire source code for Elite and explained how every line works, plus included deep dives into various functionality. Covers all main versions like BBC Micro, Commodore 64 and NES. You can also play online in browser. elite.bbcelite.com

Traders placed over $1bn in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war. What is going on? Suspicious wagers on the US-Israel war in Iran are creating huge windfalls and raising concerns among lawmakers

Traders placed over $1bn in perfectly timed bets on the Iran war. What is going on? www.theguardian.com/world/2026/a...

How the Trump family's business deals could open the door for future presidents to profit from office For the Trump family, business is booming. Whereas the Trump Organization didn’t do a single deal overseas in Donald Trump's first term as president, it did eight in the past year.

For decades, presidents avoided even the appearance of profiting from their office. President Donald Trump is taking a different approach. https://to.pbs.org/482NOaK

How the Trump family's business deals could open the door for future presidents to profit from office For the Trump family, business is booming. Whereas the Trump Organization didn’t do a single deal overseas in Donald Trump's first term as president, it did eight in the past year.

The Trump family real estate business is undergoing the fastest overseas expansion since its founding a century ago, each deal potentially shaping everything from tariffs to military aid. https://to.pbs.org/482NOaK

Last night, the Trump administration quietly waived sanctions on Iranian oil, desperately appeasing Iran in the hope they’ll be permitted to TACO away…

Trump administration policymaking: Something between a joke and a tragedy or treachery

Far-right troll account followed by JD Vance on X unmasked “HowlingMutant,” who jokes about rape and the Holocaust, is Alexander Norden of New York City

NEW: We’ve identified the man who runs the far-right troll account on X “HowlingMutant,” whose jokes about rape and the Holocaust have earned him nearly 200,000 followers, which include Vice President JD Vance. His name is Alexander Norden, from Rockaway Park in New York City.

Family Feud? Survey says this military group will be against opening any Strait: xcancel.com/farsnews_age...

What I Saw Inside the Kennedy Center I spent 10 months working at the institution because I thought I could help protect it. What I observed there is far worse than the public knows.

Heartbreaking description of the pointless, thoughtless damage being done to the Kennedy Center. It was such an important part of life in Washington, and is now being destroyed for no reason

www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026...

4 years anniversary of the sinking of the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, the cruiser Moskva

You know I knew that Door Dash woman looked familiar

Hungary’s election has ended Viktor Orbán’s 16-year rule.

Days before the vote, we uncovered exposed passwords linked to Hungarian government systems.

Here’s what we found: www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/04...

Investigation: Western companies miss deadline to exit Russia’s main drone production site Manufacturers from Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, France, and the U.S. continue operating in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, where Russia produces thousands of Shahed drones capable of reaching the...

"The head of Belgian Drylock Technologies' Russian factories publicly thanked the company's employees who joined the Russian army and fought against Ukrainians."

The factory is based in the Alabuga Special Economic Zone, where Russia produces Shahed drones.

kyivindependent.com/investigatio...

What’s Up, Doc?

So let’s have universal health care and help people live in dignity.

The Iranian Navy is completely obliterated, apart from the so-called "fast attack ships", which we can trust are no threat to slow moving cargo vessels.

Is Trump resurrecting Epstein?

JD Vance has to convert again?

Nothing like having a good reckoning to look forward too.

Fees for seas: a history of taxing waterways [FREE TO READ] From Ottoman Sultans to Danish kings, Iran’s toll system for Strait of Hormuz revives an old maritime fight

Is there any precedent for charging for use of an international waterway even if they are territorial waters like the Strait of Hormuz?

John-Paul Rathbone and I had a look at the history books (the answer: not quite)

as.ft.com/r/497666f2-c...

Trump-Linked World Liberty Crypto Project Faces Investor Revolt World Liberty Financial Inc., a Trump family crypto venture, is facing an investor revolt that includes billionaire backer Justin Sun, who accused the project of secretly building controls that let insiders freeze token holders’ funds.

World Liberty Financial Inc., a Trump family crypto venture, is facing an investor revolt that includes billionaire backer Justin Sun, who accused the project of secretly building controls that let insiders freeze token holders’ funds.